‘Walden on Wheels’ details Duke student’s van living

Ken Ilgunas graduated from the University of Buffalo with $32,000 in student loan debt. Determined to pay off that debt before going to graduate school, Ilgunas worked as a tour guide, cook, maintenance worker and other jobs.
When he was debt free, he began graduate school at Duke University, determined not to incur more debt. To save money, he lived for part of that time in a van, clandestinely in a campus parking lot.
Now Ilgunas has published a memoir of his journey beyond indebtedness into thrift, “Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom” (New Harvest, $15.95, paperback).
Ilgunas will read and sign copies of his memoir at 7 p.m. July 9 at The Regulator Bookshop, 720 Ninth St., Durham.

Here are some other readings and book releases:

-- Nature and science writer T. DeLene Beeland’s new book “The Secret World of Red Wolves: The Fight to Save North America’s Other Wolf” (UNC Press, $28, cloth edition), is a history of red wolves, their near extinction, and the ongoing attempt to save these beasts she calls “cryptic animals.” In the preface Beeland writes that the book is “the story of how I came to understand what red wolves are today and what they may have been historically.”
Beeland’s book is addressed to general readers rather than scientists. She chronicles the history of the reintroduction of red wolves to the Albemarle Peninsula in northeastern North Carolina. She also explains the possible origins of the wolves, and profiles the people who have helped save them. For more on this book, visit www.uncpress.unc.edu.

-- Ann Prospero, author of the 2008 book “Chefs of the Triangle,” has a new guide to good eating and good habits, “Even You Can Be Healthy!” Prospero offers advice on exercise, meditation, how to stock a kitchen, and lots of recipes, which have the virtue of being simple and do-able for the average cook.